


Malorian Arms

by SomeNondeplume



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:47:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29579091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeNondeplume/pseuds/SomeNondeplume
Summary: An alternative universe, where V and Kerry go way back, and Samurai is just setting foot into its heyday. Inspired by the streetkid origin: V arrives back from Atlanta to find herself in Padre Ibarra's debt. Dealing iron and taking advantage of a rockerboy choom with money to burn, things seem alright until Silverhand needs help saving his girlfriend from something fucked up and corporate.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand/V, Kerry Eurodyne/Johnny Silverhand
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

‘V?’

My first instinct was to go tense, but to try fucking hard not to look tense. I could pretend not to have heard, and keep walking until I was out of the club. That would have been fine. You can’t talk properly in club, anyhow.

‘V!’

But Kerry elbowed his way through the crowd until he grabbed my shoulder. He had that bright, open sort of smile that looked like it could have belonged on a toddler, not the big bad rock God he was looked like on the Samurai posters. It came busting out when he started getting too drunk, and there wasn’t a goddamed thing he could do about it. Some people are mean drunks, but Kerry was a happy one. Blissfully happy. 

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he said as he wrapped me into a hug. ‘I thought you were in Atlanta?’

‘What are *you* doing here?’ I asked. ‘I thought you had a gig tonight.’

He waved his hand dismissively. ‘Haywood’s locked down tight so they cancelled. We figured fuck-it and went out anyway. Turns out after parties are just as fun without the gig.’

‘Shit. It was in Haywood?’

‘Yeah!’ His stupid grin grew a few more inches and he nodded enthusiastically. ‘S’normally a preem crowd. We've played there a few times now.’ 

‘Right. The lockdown. Kerry, I’m sorry.’ I shook my head. ‘I gotta go.’

‘What? But It’s been fucking ages!’

‘I know, but- Kerry. I can’t be talking to you right now. I gotta go.’

His eyebrow furrowed and the grin started to disappear. 

‘You’re meant to be in Atlanta.’

I nodded. 

‘When d’you get back?’

‘...Today.’

‘Fuck. Fuck!’

‘-Kerry-‘

‘I heard it was some Valentino’s shit, and the NCPD- but I-‘

‘I didn’t think anyone would be here. I thought you had a gig. You don’t normally play Haywood.’

‘So you’re in trouble? Fuck! V, the whole neighbourhood was-’

‘I just gotta stay clear for a while.’

‘How long?’

I shrugged.

‘So where’re you staying?’

‘I’m not. I’m laying low.’

‘Since you got in?’

‘Yeah. Yeah – Kerry - I spent the day in Santa Maria’s backroom, but I don’t know how they figured where I was. And, you know, I was hiding out with the priests. I couldn’t let gang bangers shoot up the place. They’re priests, right?’

‘So you were just gonna stand around here all night?’

‘Not now I know you’re here.’

‘V!’

‘I don’t mean it like that. I just don’t want you getting involved.’

Kerry put his drink down behind him, where the railing was wide and flat enough to keep it upright, but it was sure to end up falling off the edge and it’d be a fucking miracle if it didn’t hit someone on the way down. That’d be one way to draw attention. I grabbed it, and put it on a table instead. 

‘Let’s go.’ He shook his head before I could tell him no. ‘Just fucking trust me.’

The van they gigged out of was non-descript and had dark, tinted windows. I had worse options. And once we had it parked up on the hill, where the big estates were being built in the new fancy neighborhood – like Hollywood hills, except Night City - we could watch out over the road up. There was only one because they were planning to put some big security gate there, and employ Militech to stand guard. We’d see someone coming from literally a mile away. 

Kerry was sucking down some sort of pop so fast that the bottle started to bend in on itself.

I laughed at him. ‘You really have been at it since yesterday.’

He leaned back against the driver’s seat, and tucked his legs up on either side of the steering wheel. ‘I’m gonna have a fucking *hangover*.’

When he looked over my way, he had one of those looks that told me he was on the way down. It hadn't taken him long, but I think my situation had pushed him into sobering up too. I was in trouble. Kerry had a thing for people in trouble.

‘You gonna tell me about it?’

‘I can’t say much.’

‘It’s that bad, huh?’

‘There’s a goddamned hostile takeover happening right now.’ I laughed a little. ‘It’s like some corpo shit. Management restructuring.’

‘So Reyes?’

‘Gone.’

‘...That aint so bad, though. Right?’

‘He’s the one who sent me to Atlanta.’

‘But that was bullshit. You said so yourself.’

‘Yeah, but I didn’t realise how bullshit it was until I got there.’

He waited. He waited to see if I’d tell him any more about it, but he didn’t ask again. He knew when not to ask. 

‘It... Atlanta was wild, Kerry. You think Night City is a fucking mess, but it was a bad deal. Not for Reyes, though. Those Atlanta gangs hit hard, and he was gonna bring them in and march through Haywood. The Valentino’s work pretty well as they are. The families know where the boundaries are and stay in their own lane, but Reyes had a plan. He wanted to consolidate. The neighbourhood would have been...’

‘I get it. A fucking bloodbath.’

‘They had some serious hardware, but more than that, they didn’t have any allegiance to anyone in Haywood. No neighbourly bullshit. So Reyes was bringing in an army that could do what they wanted without feeling bad about it, you know?’

Kerry nodded, sombre now. 

‘So how’d you end up here?’

‘Here? Some gonk I know ran into me in a club and wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

He threw his empty plastic bottle at my head. I laughed and swatted it away. It was nice to laugh. I’d had been a long time. I remembered why I loved Kerry much. He made laughing easy. 

‘I called a friend of mine, whose in with Ibarra.’

‘So that’s why you ended up at the church? Cause you were working with the Padre.’

‘Yeah. He figured Reyes wouldn’t storm a holy place, but don’t trust him to draw the line there. I saw the shit they did in Atlanta. Gunning down some priests wouldn’t have been a drop in the ocean. So I left. I called Ibarra and told him I was getting out, and he promised to call me when he needed me to show back up in Haywood.’

‘To do what?’

‘... I might have done it all for a good reason, but I still fucked with the gang. Valentino’s have a code. But the Padre reckons he’ll fix it.’

‘You trust him?’

I shrugged. ‘If he gets me out of this one, fuck yeah.’

‘You’re gonna owe him big, though.’

‘I know. But I owe him for the whole neighborhood. Sounds like a good deal for me.’

Kerry lit another cigarette and threw me the packet. ‘You’re a fucking saint. You know that, right?’

‘Kerry, you and I both know-‘

‘You wait. That church’ll have your name on it instead of Mary-whatever.’

‘Santa Maria.’

There was a bit of content silence then. Kerry had enough answers that he was satisfied, and I watched the road like my life depended on it, because – more importantly – Kerry’s life depended on it now. I wouldn’t let him get caught with me. I just wouldn’t. 

He pointed to one of the developments. ‘I’m gonna buy one of these houses one day.’

‘Fuck off,’ I scoffed. ‘What would you do with a house that big? You cant keep the apartment you got now in working order.’

‘I’m gonna have a fucking big mansion. I’ll have eddies to pay someone to clean it.’


	2. Chapter 2

It was a few days before I heard from Kerry again. He fell asleep sometime in the morning, after the sun came up. I think Nancy called him and yelled at him, because there was a very one sided conversation, I’d been privy too with a lot of swearing and promising to bring the van back in one piece. He’d told me about Nancy before. There was still gigging equipment in the back: instruments and speakers and shit. I expect it was worth a lot of money. 

But Kerry had fallen asleep, and when I got the call from Ibarra about coming back to face the music, I decided to leave him alone. I had a friend come get me from the bottom of the hill, and I left Kerry a note and said not to call me for a few days so I could sort some shit out. But also, thanks for keeping me company. 

I expected a firing squad. Turns out Ibarra had a lot of favours to call in, and he took that friend of mine – Jackie’s – word that I was a good sort. I sat in front of the families who ran Haywood like a miniatured United-fucking-States of its own. Territories were redrawn, and industries divided up, like gun-running or drug pushing and whatever else – and I was given over to the Padre. I’d snuck out enough footage and shit that it would have been hard not to believe me. And frankly, it was a relief that the discussion was about gun-running and drug-pushing and not some of the real dark shit they went in for in Atlanta. In a weird way, I felt like I’d stepped back into a safe zone. Somewhere familiar. 

Ibarra said I had to lay low for a while. There was a power vacuum. I mean, the families had decided who was going to take over that turf, but that didn’t mean that it was as easy as all that. There were people who still loved Reyes, and he was gone. Dead, over the course of the weekend. Dead before the revolution began. 

Anyway, it ended up with me staying with Jackie and his Mamma, who made the best tamale’s I’ve ever eaten in my life, so my moving in wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t comfortable living under someone else’s roof, but Padre said it was necessary, and Mamma’s hospitality made that an easier pill to swallow. I had to be bought into *his* family, and this was the best way to do it, because I was with him now, and that had to be understood by the whole neighbourhood. 

When Kerry called me four days later, which is the bare minimum I’d outlined in the shitty little note I’d left him, on the back of some takeaway sop packet I’d found in the van, I had good news. All was well. And he had new too. They were playing a big gig, and he’d put me on the backstage list. 

Fuck yes. 

The gig was amazing. Kerry was killing it. I thought for a second he might catch my eye, but he looked over the crowd in that out-of-focus way performers did when the lights got in their eyes and they couldn’t see anything properly, like looking into a car windscreen with dark tint. But back-stage they were at each other’s throats. The manager stopped me at the door and said that I probably didn’t want to go in, and I ignored him when I heard Kerry’s voice. It was defensive, even though it was muffled enough by the door that I couldn’t hear it properly. Not his words, anyway. I heard enough to know something was up.

When I walked in the guitarist – Silverhand - had him close to the wall. He loomed over him really, cause he had legs that were impossibly long, like he was up on stilts or some shit. And I don’t know what happened between then and when I was over by Kerry and telling him to back the fuck off. 

Kerry looked like he was caught between a rock and a hard place, and didn’t want to be there at all. 

‘Who the fuck is this?’ Silverhand demanded. I knew him by reputation. Kerry had talked about him a lot. 

Kerry put his hand on my arm. ‘It’s fine, V. He’s just a fuck asshole.’

The rest of the band were round the room. No one was jumping to Kerry’s defense. That pissed me off. 

‘This the sort of shit you go in for after a gig?’ I challenged. 

The pianist shrugged her shoulders – Nancy - but I could tell everyone was uncomfortable. There was a sort of tension in the room that meant when she said ‘He’s harmless’, I got the feeling that no one really believed that. 

Kerry still had his arm on my shoulder. He gripped it a little tight and said ‘Fuck this. Let’s go.’ 

So we did. 

The afterparty was in the bar. Kerry and the band had free drinks for the night, so long as they stayed in the venue. It was good business. 

I always thought Kerry was a talented musician, but being in that bar made me realise he was for real. He was a Rockstar. Maybe not out there in big-bad Night City, at least not yet, but in that bar, on that same night, he sure was. We got drunk. Hella drunk. Drunk enough that he started talking about Michael. 

‘Fuck’ he shook his head. ‘Mike wouldn’t have believed it. Us hanging out like this.’ He got that stupid grin on his face when he was drunk, but when he was real drunk, everything he did seemed real slow, like I was watching him move underwater. 

He raised his glass like he was gonna toast something, with two elbows still on the bar. ‘He talked about you all the fucking time. All the time.’

‘Yeah, he-‘

‘He fucking loved you! What a guy. Fuck.’

I shook my head. ‘Kerry. I don’t wanna talk about this.’

‘Right. I’m sorry. I just- you know.’

‘I know.‘

He waved his head like he was trying to fast forward the conversation. ‘Valentino’s. I get it. He didn’t want you in that sort of biz. And now, well...’

I swallowed the last third of my drink like it was a pill. ‘Kerry, I never even told you... He left so much behind. Debt, I mean. He was bleeding eddies for years, and I didn’t know. He never said. So – you know how it is – funerals are expensive. Reyes said he’d cover it, but I didn’t know... I didn’t know he was gonna hold me to it like he did.’

I hadnt told Kerry that side of things. I never meant to. But we were drunk, and it just sort of slipped out. I wanted to explain myself, because Kerry had always looked out for me, ever since the funeral.  
‘...goddamit. Fucking goddamit!’

‘Kerry-‘

‘I’m suck a fucking gonk. I had no idea! I had eddies, too. At the funeral. I had eddies in my fucking pocket and I felt so awkward about the whole thing that I didn’t know if I should give them over or-‘

‘Kerry, let’s not do this now.’

He shook his head, and then rallied quickly – as Kerry always did, jumping from one mood to another – and waved the bartender over. 

‘We need more. At least two. Each.’

‘For me as well,’ said Silverhand. The guitarist. He’d slipped into our conversation by drapping himself round Kerry’s neck, friendly-like. 

‘That’s six,’ Kerry said, without skipping a beat. ‘At least.’

I baulked. A few hours ago this guy was over Kerry like a predator. He’d been fucking mad. And now?

A few hours of drinking had changed something. 

‘So,’ he said. ‘Who the fuck are you? You didn’t tell me before.’

I didn’t know what to say. 

‘V,’ Kerry said. Did I detect a hint of pride? ‘She’s my choom from Haywood.’

Johnny nodded thoughtfully. ‘A Haywood girl...’

‘She’s *my* Haywood girl,’ Kerry started to shove his arm off of him when the drinks started coming our way. ‘So hands off.’

Johnny Silverhand scoffed. ‘So, what’s your deal? I’ve never met anyone from Haywood who didn’t have some sort of deal.’

Kerry realised the territory the conversation had entered, and shut his mouth. I didn’t say a damn thing. 

But Silverhand just looked between us and started to nod. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Ganger then.’ He playfully shoved Kerry. ‘I didn’t know you had the balls for that! Fucking A. Kerry!’

Then there were drinks on the bar, and not far behind Silverhand came a wave of activity. Groupies, fans, whatever. Suddenly the quiet corner of the bar wasn’t quiet, and Kerry and I were swept along with whatever the fuck happened that night: it’s a bit blurry. At some point Silverhand asked me ‘Serious, what the fuck is your deal?’ and I sensed something protective, like he was trying to make sure I wasn’t bad biz for Kerry. I laughed a bit, despite the fact that I’d had a pretty fucking poor impression of the gonk in the green room, and just said something like ‘Por el amor de Dios’ under my breath, and nodded like that told him everything he needed to know. 

‘Valentino.'


	3. Chapter 3

Samurai was doing well. Real well. They had money to burn, which meant that Kerry was inviting me out more often than not. And I took him up on that invite more often than not because free drinks were hard to come by, and I wasn’t stacked with cash. I was only just starting my biz again. I didn’t dare until the Padre gave me the all-clear. 

I didn’t care much for the rest of the band, but I guess Kerry ended up telling Silverhand more than I expected. When he turned up in Haywood with cash to burn... well, I wasn’t expecting him. 

‘V,’ Gabe slunk over. I was helping out in the kitchen at Mamma’s house. She’d taken me in on the Padre’s behalf when the takeover of Reyes’ territory happened in Haywood. He said it was important that I was part of his family now, and Mamma had room for me. Though I knew that was because Jackie and me went way back. And then it was Semana Santa and there were far guests than just me in the house, to the point where the gather spilled out of the house and into the courtyard behind, where the kids played basketball.

I didn’t have a shop, since the one Michael ran was taken over by Reyes right after the funeral. Since then I operated out of wherever I was. Padre said I should keep it that was for now. Just for a while. And I trusted him, because Ibarra had proved himself to be a master of timing. He knew when to call the neighbourhood together, and when to call me back into Haywood when I was just 24 hours back in from Atlanta, and enough shit went down that the PD had closed the roads in and out while the gangland sorted itself out. 

So, when Johnny Silverhand turned up at the door, I was surprised. I was in a white blouse and skirt, which I hadnt given much thought until I was in front of Johnny. But he looked surprised. 

‘V?’ he started. He got over it pretty fucking quick. ‘I wanna source a Malorian 3516. Actually, two.’

‘...the fuck you telling me for?’

‘Kerry said this was your biz.’

‘...fuck. Fucking hell, Kerry.’

‘I got eddies.’

‘I know you do. Kerry said he was cashed up when I was talking to him yesterday.’

‘So you can get it done?’

I looked past him. He’d been followed into the neighbourhood. Luckily, it was Jackie who’d found him. He stood at the bottom of the steps, watching it all quietly. 

‘Thanks, Jack.’

He shrugged. ‘No problem, Chica. El es un idiota, aunque.’

This was a bad part of Haywood to just waltz into. It was the heart of Ibarra’s territory. And especially today, because people were drinking, and that often went hand-in-hand with bad decisions. 

I sighed. ‘Why do you want Malorian?’

He shrugged. ‘Cause I do.’

‘But-‘ I shook my head. ‘I’m busy today.’

He peered past me into the hall. ‘I’m interrupting something?’

‘Yes.’

He looked me up and down. Slowly. ‘I got extra eddies for working on holidays.’

Then Mamma was coming by to see who was turning up at her house, and she said something to me about knowing better than to do business on a day like today. But I couldn’t send Silverhand on his way, because I’d probably have to walk him out of these blocks myself in case he got himself into trouble, and I was busy. Mamma needed help hosting all these folks. 

Then Jackie offered him a beer, and it was settled. Johnny Silverhand was staying. 

We didn’t make it far though the house before he heard the music. The boys had set up with beers and guitars in the living room, and I discovered for the first time that Johnny Silverhand settled into places like bedbugs, and made himself real comfortable real quick. I kept floating around the house with Mamma. Food. Drink. I helped hostess because I felt like I owed her far more than just that. It was late in the day before I talked to Johnny again. I’d seen him, sure. He watched the old folks play. Their guitar was complicated and fast. Nothing like the guitar Johnny played for Samurai. I felt a little respect for the fact that he seemed to quickly understand the reverence that that sort of playing deserved. They were old hands. He even tried to copy what he saw for himself. I caught him trying his best to follow what he’d just heard, and good naturedly laughed at himself when the old hands laughed at his attempts. 

He found me in the kitchen. I was clearing dishes out of the washer. 

‘You didn’t answer me before.’

‘Malorian 3516. I can make it happen. Sure. But how the fuck did you know where to find me? Kerry hasn’t been here before. I didn’t tell him where I was staying on purpose.’

He shrugged. ‘I asked the right people. It wasn’t difficult.’

Ibarra was right, then. He’d bought me into the fold ‘cause I was infamous now. I’d caused the Haywood lockdown, after all. People knew me. People knew Padre. People knew what happened. He was right to play the PR angle, even if it was fucking frustrating. 

‘I’ll get you a price. It’ll take more than just tomorrow, though. Malorian’s are already a dying breed.’

‘I can wait.’

‘And I gotta make sure there’s no way they’re coming back to me if you do something gonk. That takes time.’

‘Whatever. I’ll pay what you want.’

‘You’ve never done much business before, have you?’ I laughed. ‘You’re shit at bargaining.’


	4. Chapter 4

Kerry lived in a shithole. It was an apartment in the middle of an apartment block, so there was no windows, and the air was always stale, and you could hear the apartment above, and below, and up against each wall. It was claustrophobic. 

But the band was holed up writing and practicing something new, and there was a steady stream of fans or friends or whoever-the-fuck in and out, as the bad drifted in and out of inspiration and stages of inebriation and arguments. 

I made sure to bring some food when I went round. Knowing Kerry, he was in need of something to soak it all up and get his head straight again. But Kerry was at a good stage, almost manic with joy. ‘I’ve nearly got it. I’ve nearly fucking got it, V. It’s right there. So close I can fucking taste it!’

‘Will you just fucking taste this for now?’ I said, and tried to push another slice onto him.

I hadnt talked to anyone else in the band much, besides Silverhand, now that he was a customer. The Malorian’s were ready to go a few weeks ago, and I took rockerboy out to a range so I could finalise the sale, but also, I wanted to know he wasn’t gonna shoot his own foot off. Turns out he was more than capable. He’d been a soldier, I knew, but that didn’t mean much with small arms like that.   
The only problem was that he was into some John Wayne bullshit that put his aim off. I told him all the filmstar moves in the world were worthless if they didn’t hit anything, and that playing pretend cowboy could get him killed. That put an end to his giddy carrying on, like he was a kid playing pretend, and I realised then why Kerry and Johnny got along in their strange way. They both looked like little boys having the time of their lives when they were writing their new song, in that shithole apartment. 

Though, when I told him he was being gonk, the giddy went away and he got mad pretty quick. Then I started to get mad because he was acting like a child, and then I took one of the Malorian’s and showed him how it was done without all the flash. Just a steady hand. A straight arm. I took my eddies and left. 

So, no one else in the band had ever said much to me. Not after I’d walked into their dressing room and told them what I though of them that first night, for letting Johnny go after Kerry like he did. But it was Nancy who noticed that I was there to make sure Kerry was in one piece, and she seemed grateful. 

‘We haven’t met properly,’ she said, when she was trying to strike up a conversation. She had red eyes and that sort of sleepy countenance that told me she was on the way down from something. ‘And I realise you walked into some shit that seemed pretty fucking dysfunctional before. But It’s not always like that. This works-‘ she waved her hand around like she was trying to indicate the five of them ‘-somehow.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Nancy, yeah?’

She nodded. 

‘Kerry said you’re the one who makes it work. That cant be fucking easy.’

‘You can say that again.’

She reached into her back pocket and a little box with hand-rolled cigarettes that I assumed were a little more than just cigarettes. I mean, there were smokes all over the apartment, but these ones had a special little tin, and had been tucked away somewhere close. 

‘Want one?’

And I thanked her for whatever-the-fuck-it-was and listened to the boys figure things out. Kerry was keen on Johnny’s rift work, which was fast and complicated, and reminded me of the music he was trying to learn from the old hands at Mamma’s place during Semana Santa. I didn’t say anything, though. I just listened.


	5. Chapter 5

I told Silverhand he had to test his new arms out before I took payment. That’s why I’d met Johnny at the range in Haywood. I did lots of business there. The guy who ran the range was an old Valentinos veteran and had philosophy of teaching kids how to shoot so they didn’t get themselves into trouble without meaning to. I was one of those kids, and so we went way back. But that was what Michael had done for so many years to set himself apart form the other iron-dealers in Haywood. He would check things were right before taking final payment – sights and balance and shit. He called it ‘customer service’.

I expected Silverhand would be all over the place with a heavy revolver like that. I was sort-of-surprised. Kerry said he’d been in Mexico, but I didn’t know what training that meant he’d had. But I guess that sort of training stayed with you, in a sort of fuck-up-psychiatric way. 

I agreed to take payment for them on one condition. ‘Don’t you ever get up on Kerry like I saw the other night.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You had him up against the wall and everyone in your band seemed real nervous about it.’

‘Fuck, that’s not it.’

‘No? That’s what I saw.’

‘Kerry was being an uptight asshole about-‘

‘I don’t give a fuck what it was about, but if you do Kerry like that again-‘

‘You’ll do fucking what?’

I didn’t answer him in words. I took one of the Malorian from him and shot it down the range. I knew the place like the back of my hand, after all. I’d been shooting there since I was a kid. I didn’t even need to look.

‘Fucking hell.’

‘You get the idea. Don’t be a gonk.’

‘You gonna take my money then?’

‘...sure. So long as you look after these. They’re almost museum pieces. If they get dunked in Tequilla or some shit, I’ll take them straight back, you better fucking believe it.’

But a few weeks later the owner told me that Silverhand had been in to the range a few times. Practicing. I guess our argument from before had left a bit of a sore spot. I asked him to let me know the next time Johnny was in, and I’d drop by myself. 

He was still on his cowboy shit, but at least now he was matching it with some more accuracy. Impressive, actually, which made me suspect that he actually wasn’t a bad shot in the first place, but the Malorian’s were heavy, and took a bit of getting use to. 

‘You just here for the show?’ he asked. 

He was cocky now. I mean, he has always been cocky, each time I’d met him, but then he was pissed when he was getting shown up. Now, he was just pleased with himself.

‘You really don’t know much about business,’ I said. ‘This bit is called customer service. I wanted to check everything was shimra.’

He nodded to the targets. ‘You tell me.’

I waved it aside. ‘Alright. Alright. You’re fine. Guns are fine. I’ll leave you alone.’

He stopped me before I could leave, though, and handed me one of the pistols. 

‘Try show me up now.’

Then, when I didn’t bite, he smirked. 

‘I fucking dare you.’

I refused the Malorian. Instead, I took him out to my car. It wasn’t much to look at, just a sedan which was neat enough but had a few bumps and scraps from just being around Night City. Occupational hazard. The boot was locked tight, though. Password locked. I was like a travelling salesmen with samples ready to go. That’s what I was reduced to, without a proper shop. But also, Reyes didn’t need to me to deal. He’d needed me to use the iron to do his dirty work. I was goddammed glad to be out of that now. 

If Johnny hadnt challenged me, I might not have shown him my pride and joy. Precision rifle. I guess I was a bit childish too, like Johnny, and like Kerry. 

So a quick stop in turned into at least an hour. Then I introduced him to the owner properly. He kept beers in a fridge behind the front counter, and he let us in behind the security cage to sit around for a while. It was like taking someone home to meet your parents and they bring out all the embarrassing baby photos, except it was story’s about Michael and me and the shit we got into when we were little.   
That was the second time that I realised Johnny Silverhand had a way of making himself very comfortable in whatever situation he found himself. And that was pretty fucking alarming, when I really thought about it. This was serious gangland, and he had stepped into it like it was nothing. I’d spent years keeping Kerry out of it. Michael had, too, for the few months that they were together before he died. 

He knew about all that too, it seemed, just from the way he didn’t stop to ask questions when Danny started on about Michael. I guess Kerry had told him about how they dated, and that it wasn’t real serious, and they both knew it. But then he died just after, and Kerry felt like he owed me something, and turned up to the funeral trying to do the right thing. But we both knew that he and Michael were just fucking around, but Kerry’s was the sort of soft heart that suckered on to folks who really needed it, and I was standing alone at my brothers casket. At least they bought me back his body, and the precision rifle he had spent so much time working on.


End file.
